today, president obama said again something must be done. >> so these cuts are not smart. they are not fair. they will hurt our economy. they will add hundreds of thousands of americans to the unemployment rolls. this is not an abstraction. people will lose their jobs. >> so there are two solutions. number one, lawmakers find another way to punt, ie, delay the cuts for another few months or two, actually come up with a major plan to slash the debt. number two is not going to happen. the punt, i kind of like. anyway, that won't happen. number one has a decent chance. number one has failed, too. after all, the feared forced cuts are only 2.5% of projected total federal spending. we have an economics professor at nyu and former director of the congressional budget office. at this point, are the cuts inevitable? why is the president still talking about it? >> well, we're ten days away and it seems like the republicans really don't want to do anything to fend off this crisis. you said sequester is an odd word. in a lot of languages, it means kidnap. it's sort of a kidnap situat